▪ I. grift, n.1 dial.
[? a. Du. grift; cf. griff n.1]
(See quot. 1889.)
| 1851 Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. XII. ii. 313 The waters..form the main drains for the low lands under the names of ‘cloughs’, ‘eaus’, ‘fleets’, and ‘grifts’. 1889 N.W. Linc. Gloss., Grift, a channel shaped out by water for itself; a runnel. |
▪ II. grift, n.2 U.S. slang.
(grɪft)
[Perh. corruption of graft n.5]
= graft n.5
| 1914 Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Crim. Slang 39 Grift,..graft. 1929 D. Hammett Dain Curse (1930) iii. 21 ‘How's the literary grift go?’ I asked. He looked at me sharply. 1931 W. Faulkner Sanctuary xvi. 112 ‘If you'll just promise to get the kid a good newspaper grift when he's big enough to make change,’ he said. 1940 R. Chandler Farewell My Lovely xxxiii. 157 Hell, I thought he sold reefers. With the right protection behind him. But hell, that's a small-time racket. A peanut grift. 1961 J. F. Johnson Man who sold Eiffel Tower (1962) iv. 52 A good confidence man..has to have what is known as ‘grift sense’. |
▪ III. grift, v. U.S. slang.
(grɪft)
[f. grift n.2]
= graft v.4 So ˈgrifting vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| 1915 G. Bronson-Howard God's Man iv. iv. 263 Grifting ain't what it used to be. Fourteenth Street's got protection down to a system—a regular underworld tariff on larceny. 1926 Flynn's 31 Jan., Grift, to steal; to graft. 1940 Amer. Speech XV. 110/2 Grift, to work any profession included in the grift. 1955 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xxiv. 144 Tim Bairdon used to grift with a buzzer on his vest. 1956 H. Gold Man who was not with It (1965) ii. 10 Grifting troubadours, bonnie princes of con with ten-gallon hats. Ibid. 16 How long you been grifting? |
▪ IV. grift(e
obs. form of graft n.1 and v.1